<p>Do any of you guys know what top-25 schools and LACs have great philosophy departments/programs?</p>
<p>Any help is appreciated!</p>
<p>I believe NYU has a renowned philosophy department.</p>
<p>Princeton.</p>
<p>Is Duke any good? I want to take phil classes there as well. I know Cornell is really good though.</p>
<p>NYU and Princeton are generally considered the best. Believe it or not, Rutgers has a very strong philosophy department as well.</p>
<p>Other top departments include Harvard, Cornell, MIT, Stanford and Columbia.</p>
<p>At the undergraduatre level, all good universities, including the LACs, have good philosophy programs. </p>
<p>At the graduate level, I would say the following are the best:
New York University
Princeton University
Rutgers University-New Brunswick
University of Michigan-Ann Arbor
University of Pittsburgh</p>
<p>Other excellent graduate programs include:
Columbia University
Cornell University
Harvard University
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Stanford University
University of California-Berkeley
University of California-Los Angeles
University of Notre Dame
University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill
University of Texas-Austin</p>
<p>But I really urge you not to consider rankings when it comes to the field of Philosophy...especially at the undergraduate level. Philosophy is a highly abstract and intangible subject. Ranking its programs is a shot in the dark at best...an exercise in futility if you ask me.</p>
<p>Like any subject, some departments have stronger knowledge in a certain area of the field. However, because you are going for undergrad, it's not that big of an issue. If you want preprofessional training in philosophy, go to a school with minimal requirements. It would probably be better for philosophy students to have broad educations during which they learn to write well, communicate effectively, and explore a vareity of fields. </p>
<p>At any school with a good phil department, such as NYU and UCB, you probalby won't get much time around the bigger names that make the school so reknowned. That means you'd be lucky to have a class with Derrida (when he was around), pretty lucky to have a class with Searle (although i do hope to take his phil of language classes). </p>
<p>This link might be helpful to you. The general advice is get a good, broad undergraduate education, because that will give you the best hope for good dealings with philosophy. </p>
<p>Also, read the many criticisms of the rankings if you explore this site. Go to the school that is best for you! If Harvard happens to feel better than Princeton, go there, even if Princeton is known for having a better department (although, as all rankings are, this is disputed).</p>
<p>I'm a philosophy major at the University of Texas at Austin. Because of its size, it is able to offer many different types of philosophy classes. So far, I've had a great experience with it.</p>
<p>Have you had any classes with Dr. Solaman(I think that is how you spell his name)?</p>
<p>
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Do any of you guys know what top-25 schools and LACs have great philosophy departments/programs?
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</p>
<p>All of them. </p>
<p>lol, I know that doesn't help at all, but it's true. :p</p>
<p>I'll echo other posters in saying that you should give Princeton and NYU a close look. I also have a friend who's a philosophy major at Yale and loves it.</p>
<p>pretty much all of them have good philosophy departments I'd assume, but I think NYU has some really neat personalities there.</p>
<p>I took an Intro to Philosophy class at Harvard SSP last summer. My professor (who had gone to Harvard for his undergrad and grad and currently is a professor at Brandeis) actually discouraged my class from going to Harvard for undergrad because it is not the "best" for every department. He actually said that in his opinion Columbia currently had the best undergrad phil. department, he didn't really give specific reasons. He was a great professor, quite quirky.</p>
<p>It depends on the style of philosophy your interested in studying.</p>
<p>I personally prefer metaphysics rather than ethics.</p>
<p>Haha! Your post suggests that there are those only two fields in philosophy. </p>
<p>Best to go to an LAC. Amherst has an excellent program in philosophy. You should check out their philosophy department website--it has information on graduates who went off to top graduate schools etc.
There are some universities where you will get a fine education in philosophy, but unfortunately most of the top-philosophy departments at universities are more concerned with their graduate students. If you want to look at universities, look a those that focus on their undergraduates or those that do not have an extensive graduate program--like Dartmouth.</p>
<p>Geminhop, was that Teuber? I had him for intro. He's insane! I had this hour long conversation with him about God. It was amazing.</p>
<p>I think this is one major where even undergrads will get attention at a University as advanced classes will be rather small.</p>
<p>Most top LACs have great philo departments. Williams and Amherst in particular have excelent departments.</p>
<p>"Haha! Your post suggests that there are those only two fields in philosophy."</p>
<p>Does it? Because I was under the assumption that it just implied that I prefered one branch of philosophy over another. :)</p>
<p>Random...check.</p>
<p>Definitive....no.</p>
<p>There's always epistemology, ethics, causation, biology, semantics, education, political and social systems, etc.</p>
<p>The list is infinite.</p>
<p>Just making sure.
It's true, there are dozens of concentrations in philosophy.
It's important to look at what field you want to go into specifically. Well, actually that is less important in undergraduate study.</p>